Ontario's offer to education workers insufficient to keep with living costs: union

Children raise their hand in a classroom. (Narongchai Hlawprasert/Adobe Stock Photo/CNN)

The raises the province is offering education workers in a proposed four-year deal aren't enough to keep up with the cost of living, the union representing public high school teachers said Thursday.

Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers' Federation, weighed in on the proposal the government tabled earlier this week in bargaining with the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

"I think it's unfair," she said. "We in OSSTF, a third of our members are education workers, and they fall in that same kind of earning category."

The proposed deal, which would offer a two per cent raise to education workers making less than $40,000 a year and a 1.25 per cent raise to everyone else, gave a first indication of what the Progressive Conservative government is seeking in deals also being negotiated with the four major teachers' unions.

Littlewood said her union is still in the early stages of bargaining and has yet to receive an offer from the province, but she expects to see a similar proposal.

Offering only a 1.25 per cent increase, after raises were capped at one per cent for several years, is "not respectful for the work that's being done," she said.

"We are having difficulty retaining workers, hiring workers. You're not going to get them this way," she said.

"It's the same as health care. It's happening there faster than in education, but we have to look at all those warning signs."

CUPE has asked the province for annual raises of 11.7 per cent -- or $3.25 per hour -- arguing workers' wages have been restricted over the last decade and inflation has been high.

The previous contracts were subject to legislation known as Bill 124, introduced by the government in 2019, that capped wage increases to one per cent a year for three years for public sector workers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2022.